One tweet epitomizes the GOP's case for why President Trump is within his rights to sign a series of contentious executive orders in his first days as president. So he indicated he would start testing the limits of his authority and signing more far-reaching executive orders. As the chart above shows, Obama didn't really accelerate his number of executive orders after those comments in January 2014. He added other protections for federal workers, including sick days and LGBT non-discrimination executive orders. He doesn't feel the need to justify his executive orders by pointing to an intransigent Congress.

Source: Washington Post January 31, 2017 13:06 UTC